


Draco Malfoy and the Quiet Years

by PaperSnake



Series: Hogwarts [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Detention, Drarry, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Parseltongue, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 06:19:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11549271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaperSnake/pseuds/PaperSnake
Summary: Harry Potter has a conversation a snake during their detention and Draco is forced to wonder again how a parselmouth isn’t in Slytherin. Draco blames himself.





	Draco Malfoy and the Quiet Years

The third greenhouse was dreadfully warm. Draco felt light-headed and too hot with the heavy gardening cloak over his uniform. The sweat made his collar soggy. However, he refused to complain. If Potter rolled his eyes at him one more time he was going to smuggle his wand into the next quidditch match and send Potter flying off his broom in front of the whole school. Damn the consequences.  
  
Potter worked on mindless tasks very obediently. He was good with the garden work despite the vacant expression on his face and the dullness in his green eyes. Malfoy turned towards his own unruly plot trying not to fall behind, but he wasn’t use to doing gardening.  
  
The Malfoy manor was tended to by house elves and old enchantments. The hedges that lined the gravel pathway to his childhood home were always kept perfectly trimmed. He was proud of the beautiful spiralling gardens that surrounded that home and left the light fragrance of their flowers. The cypress trees supernaturally kept their scent of the last rain sheltering imps from the weather. Vines around the property were wild and lush, but were charmed to keep the perfect amount of chaos. Inside the maze of hedges and weeping willows guarded statues and fountains left like hidden treasures and looked after by pale peacocks that wandered the property. It was the kind of magic lost to the great Harry Potter. 

Draco stopped short when he heard hissing.

He turned to see Potter whispering to a garter snake positioned on a branch. The snake seemed so interested and flicked its tongue playfully wiggling and hissing back. Draco had not seen Potter speak Parseltongue since a classroom duel when they were twelve. Every night for a week after that dual Draco was kept awake wondering how someone who could speak to snakes was not in Slytherin.

In brief holidays of self-awareness Draco wondered if it was all his fault. If he had just shut his mouth and not made fun of Weasley if it all would have changed. The sorting hat had mulled over Potter’s head for such a long time. Draco couldn’t help, but count Potter among his failures.

Draco often wondered about this other universe where he could have told his father that Harry Potter had been placed in Slytherin. Where might they be? Friends? Or would they just be acquaintances. Would they be just two people who shared a classroom for years, but never really talked or got very close? Draco always pictured them as friends. Draco pictured them in the common room in the black leather chairs playing wizard chest. Draco imagined marching up and down Hogsmeade village for just the right Christmas present and gifting it to him on Christmas morning in the common room where the tree lite up the cold dungeon. They might have shared a dorm. Draco could have watched the dim green light of the lake dance off Potter’s face as he slept.

Truthfully, it would have been dreadful for Draco. He would have never been a seeker. He would have been relegated to orbiting Potter’s sun for all his years of Hogwarts.

But Draco watched Potter carry out his conversation with the garter snake nevertheless. Eventually the snake curled around the branch and headed on it’s way, “What sort of things do snakes talk about?” asked Draco before he could stop himself.

Surprisingly, Potter addressed him as neutral party. It was almost as if he had forgotten who he was sharing detention with, “They’re a bit like people.” shrugged Potter. 

“They like to talk about the weather and what they ate for lunch.”

“They don’t like being shouted at.” Potter’s eyes narrowed uprooting a young shrub, “And they don’t like being kept in zoos.” he said lowering his voice.  
  
“Zoos?” repeated Draco loudly. 

“You don’t know what a zoo is Malfoy? Too muggley?” Potter smiled cockily and his gloves came up to keep his glasses from slipping. He got dirt on his cheek moving his glove back.

Draco rolled his eyes, “I was envisioning you making a fool out of yourself chatting it up with cobras.”

“It was a boa constrictor.” said Potter smugly. Draco suppressed the small chuckle that tone could have gotten out of him. He grabbed up a hand shovel and began turning the soil around.  
  
_The zoo._

Draco pictured Potter mingling among muggles at a dreadful depressing muggle zoo. Draco had often wondered about his muggle family life and his holidays. Rita Skeeter mentioned once that he was kept in a cupboard under the stairs.  
  
They obviously neglected him. Definitely didn’t feed him. He could be getting a caning daily over the summer holiday for all old Dumbledore knew.  It was painfully obvious, but ignored by everyone. Potter had clearly lived through the wrath of muggles first hand and drawn no conclusion from it.

They worked quietly in the hot greenhouse until the end of detention. Potter said nothing more. Draco didn’t antagonise him further. It felt finished. In Draco’s mind this was how all the interactions had to go.

The walk back from the greenhouses felt like it was taking ages. Draco pretended to admire the view more so they didn’t have to walk side by side. Potter always seemed to go even slower to match his speed. Did he want to walk together?

The moments where they were in each other's presence always tempted Draco to antagonise him. It just felt like something he was suppose to do.

Potter’s usual entourage of Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger were waiting for him by the castle steps. It looked as though they were bickering about something to pass the time. Potter greeted them both and they began to walk inside. He disappeared between Weasley’s lanky shadow and Granger's tuffs and curls and then they were gone. 

Draco knew what the feeling was. He wasn’t in denial about it. He accepted it readily, it was the consequences he couldn’t deal with yet. When Draco was younger thinking about Potter was simple and light like a soap-bubble.  
  
But the older he got the more it was like swallowing a rock. The thought was, _“This will lead to nothing. He’ll never know because I’ll never tell him. I’ll never tell him because he’ll never care.“_


End file.
